


Whirl: Extreme Vacation Consultant

by hellkitty



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Gen, Snapshots, i will write for your zine, zine fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-10-05 14:46:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20490602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellkitty/pseuds/hellkitty
Summary: For TF Snapshots zine (so much cute stuff in there you need to check it out and all the adorbs swag)!Post-canon fic.





	Whirl: Extreme Vacation Consultant

Nautica looked around for a seat outside the dark cell, found none, and ended up, after a moment, just settling down on the floor outside the iron bars of the ancient-looking prison cell. Old timey prison, like she saw in the holovids Brainstorm made her watch--low privacy and low tech. But maybe low tech was good right now; it wasn’t wasting valuable energon on what could be done by simple hard metal. “Hey,” she said, tentatively, into the cell’s shadows.

“Hey, yourself!” Whirl’s optic brightened, in the darkness, scooting off the plank berth and plopping himself down across from her. On the other side of the bars, of course. “A visitor! I love visitors.” He leaned closer. “So, to what do I owe the pleasure? And do you have a laser cutter on you? Better yet, a stun baton?”

“I, er, no?” Nautica paused, puzzled, trying to think of, well, a non-jailbreaky use for either of those items, and failing. “Can I ask why you’re here? Or is it, you know, too personal?” 

Whirl waved one claw dismissively. “Oh, a bit of this, a bit of that, you know. It’s a lifestyle.” 

“Uh, okay.” It certainly wasn’t her lifestyle, or one that her fellow friends from Caminus could understand. Then again, she wasn’t sure anyone really ‘understood’ Whirl. “Anyway, it’s good to see you.” 

“In the metal.” He tried a wink of his optic that she really hoped he didn’t think was sexy. 

She dragged herself back on topic: “So. I’m, uh, doing a bit of a catch up. With everyone, you know, from the old days.” Mech were starting to forget, and well, that was fine for them, but she didn’t want to forget. Life was made of connections, and she’d started to feel she was losing some, and something else besides. 

“Yeah?” The copter leaned in, sly. “How’s that going?”

“It’s, er. Going. So weird to see everyone, you know, with like normal jobs. Settled in, worrying about stuff like property values and overtime and expiration dates.” Weird and a little sad, if she could be honest. Like the adventure was over. Like they weren’t even the mechs she’d known before. 

She shook the thought off. “I’m seeing a lot of Cybertron, on the bright side!” On the less bright side, she was currently sitting in a dimly-lit jail, so...maybe not the best and most glamorous sights of Cybertron.

“Oh yeah. Cybertron, vacation paradise. Very historic.” He said ‘historic’ as if it was a synonym for ‘spark-crushingly boring’. He tapped one claw on the bar. “Now, if you want a real vacation….?”

Nautica leaned in, waiting for the end of that dangling sentence for just a klik too long. Awkward. “...you know some place to go?”

Whirl chortled. “Boatface, I know ALL the places to go. In fact, you might say, I’m a card-carrying expert.” He made an ornate flourish with his claw; he looked at it, confused, then looked down, where a square of flimsy card was fluttering to the ground. “Okay, still working on that.” He scooped it up and handed her the flimsy.

“Whirl of Polyhex,” she read. “Extreme Vacation Consultant?”

He bobbed his face bell. “You like?”

“I’m not sure what it means.”

“It means what it says. I’m using my expertise. Well. Most of it.” He leaned over. “Any crankshaft can go to the Iacon Spire or sunbathe around the Rust Seas. You know--pretending to read historical placards, slurping an overpriced engex at Megatron’s table in Maccadam’s. Boring scrap. No one wants that.”

No one? Nautica hoped he didn’t ask where she’d had dinner last night. What could she say? After visiting the energon mines, it seemed like a good way to get in touch with what she remembered of Megatron. Though now that she thought of it, the engex had seemed pricey. “So you consult on, uh, extreme vacations?”

“The extremiest.” He gave a satisfied nod. “I’m thinking of changing it to ‘adventurepreneur’ for my next batch of cards. What do you think?”

Nautica thought it sounded like the kind of word that would give Ultra Magnus an aneurysm, but before she had to find a way to tactfully share that opinion, she heard the blip-blip of a personal comm. 

Whirl held up a claw, to shush her. “Yeah? Hey! How’s it going? You like Junkion? I told you you’d like Junkion.” He turned his optic to Nautica. “Everyone’s gotta climb the Pillar of Rust at least once, am I right?”

She had no idea if he was right, but she gave a polite nod, anyway, and jotted a note on her datapad--’Pillar of Rust?’. 

“What? What’s that? Oh. Jail. Really? Hey, me too!” He rolled his optic at Nautica. “Oh, you don’t want to be in jail. I hear ya. Yeah, 100% the food sucks. Concur with extreme prejudice. On the plus, though, it’s free!” A long pause, and Nautica could swear she heard yelling through the damped audio.

Whirl reclined on the floor, crossing one foot on the other knee, kicking his foot idly. “Sure. Looks like you got two basic options here: option one, the classic, is the jailbreak. If you let your energon ration ferment near your spark chamber for about a cycle, you can make a handy explosive. It’s a bit volatile, so, you know, try not to overheat. Option two, you can purchase an add-on from me, obviously, for a very good price, and I’ll send you a text file to teach you how to rule the jail in the course of a decacycle.” He nodded over at Nautica. “Was thinking of selling it as part of my autobiography, but, hey, ya gotta monetize your content smart.” 

“Uh, sure,” she said, though she wasn’t quite sure her agreement was necessary, because he was back in the conversation.

“What do you mean, it’s my fault? You wanted extreme, and you got it.” He looked over at Nautica again. “Told him to tell one of those Galactic Council morons that their hat looked stupid.” 

She nodded sagely. Yeah, that would definitely be a bad idea--possibly even jail-worthy bad. “Wait. He’s in a Galactic Council jail?” Those guys, sure, wore funny hats, but they also really, really, really did not like Cybertronians. And they were mean. Like. Really mean. 

“Good Q. I like how you think, Boatster.” He turned back to his audio comm. “Galactic Council jail, huh? That means the energon thing probably won’t work. The offer’s still on for my Prison Leadership Guide, though, if you want. Pretty sure that’s universal.”

Nautica pursed her lips disapprovingly. 

Whirl gave a melodramatic optic-roll. Which, with one optic, involved moving his whole head. “Yeah, fine. Hold on. There’s a third option. Let me check your credit, first, though.” He grabbed for a datapad that had been resting on the cell’s sole berth.

“That’s it, my mech. Get in touch with your primal badaft!” That was DEFINITELY outraged shouting she heard, but Whirl was apparently stolidly not intimidated, tapping with his claw on the datapad. “Aaaaaaand, you’re good! See you in a bit.” He clicked off the comm, and unfolded himself from the floor. He banged one claw against the bars. “Hey, Roller! Yoo-hoodlyhoo-hoo!” 

“Are you going to bail him out?” It seemed like the only decent thing to do in the circumstances. And from a prison cell. 

“In a manner of speaking, yeah.”

Roller rounded the corner. “What?”

“You know what.” Whirl went to the door of the cell and--Nautica could only stare in disbelief--swung it open. This whole time and it hadn’t been locked? “It’s Armory Time.”

“Time to put the ‘Wreck’ in ‘recreation’?” Roller grinned, then turned to Nautica. “I’m trying to get him to put that on the next batch of cards.”

“And I told you, I hate puns.” He leaned toward Nautica, who was clambering to her feet, and then added, in a whisper, “Lie: I love puns. I just don’t want to pay him royalties.” 

She felt like some high speed train had just zoomed by her processor. “You’re going to rescue him yourself?” 

Whirl gestured at himself, thrusting his chassis forward. His voice was mock-outrage. “You think there’s anyone better qualified for a jailbreak?” 

When he put it like that….

“It’s going to be epic, Roller. I’m gonna need the rocket launch--nah, better make that TWO rocket launchers. And some grenades. You think I could check out the flamethrower, too? I wanna see if those Galactic Council nerds are flammable.” 

“I bet they are,” Roller said, reaching in his storage compartment for a set of keys.

“I bet they are, too,” Whirl said, gleefully rubbing his claws together. He stopped, abruptly, turning toward Nautica. “So. Mission recap: going to do a hard infil into extremely hostile territory, bunch of kinetic, high-caliber violence, and a daring rescue.” He offered a claw. “You in?”

Nautica felt a smile spread across her face, a smile that hadn’t been there since, well, the Lost Light days. “I never have climbed the Pillar of Rust.”

“Now’s your chance. And hey, because I’m such a generous mech, I won’t even charge you.”


End file.
